Monday, March 19, 2012

Sunday afternoon the pigeon lady showed up as I was helping Robert cut some netting (to keep her out!). As I stood on the curb and told her to leave the pit alone, she started whacking my legs with the bamboo backscratcher she was using to clear the plants. Well one thing led to another (no violence on my part) and the police showed up then all sorts of people appeared saying how awful the woman was. By that time she had stopped cursing and pinching me (hard) and started playing the "I'm old and confused" card to the police. She walked away, probably to another pit.

Earlier on Saturday as I was working on my pit, a couple of Williamsburg-type yuppies with a Llasa Apso, started screaming at me saying that I was vandalizing public property by putting netting up and that I had no right to garden in a public space and why didn't I just get a house upstate and garden there.

Aye carumba! All for a few flowers. But I'm attaching a picture that reminds me why it's worth it.
Flower Power!

Monday, March 12, 2012

As the daffodils peek through with the promise of Spring, the garden club is already facing threats from dogs and others out to damage the pits. The south pit on 21st Street and Ninth Avenue has become the go-to place for dogs, and along Eighth Avenue starting at 17th Street, a woman regularly sweeps away plantings to make room for her pigeons.

So if any of you see this type of activity, please ask the person (nicely) to stop. Take a picture and I will post it.

Also I have some deer netting we can put up to protect the pit. Just email me.

I have posted Chisholm Gallery's plea below:

Dear Chelsea Gardeners,
We need help and some advise. You might have noticed this “pigeon lady” around the neighborhood. For the last six months, daily, religiously, she has been tearing up the garden, so she can throw out food for the pigeons. After we politely pointed out to her that the pigeons will go anywhere to eat, and she doesn’t need to do it in the garden, she comes back with a vengeance. Annoyed that we would even ask, she has taken to pulling up the plants, when ever they might get in the way of the pigeons. She has even come up to our Gallery and pulled the small boxwood out of there pots and thrown them on the ground. Another time she threw on of the pots into the doorway. We have tried the police, but they never come in time, if at all. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Robert Chisholm
Chisholm Larsson Gallery
**** Now the jonquils are coming up in the garden and the hordes of pigeons just love their tender tops.